Early on, Hermione Granger had made it known at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that she was a witch not to be messed with. Even as she overcame prejudice and earned the respect of her teachers, one subject has continued to confound her – the affection of Ron Weasley.
Hermione learnt at the relatively late age of 11 that she was a witch and thereafter received an invitation to attend Hogwarts. While cultivating her spell-casting and potion-mixing skills, however, she also encountered prejudice from students like Draco Malfoy, who believed that she was out of place in the school as a non-pureblood witch. That status eventually endangered her life when she was petrified by the basilisk in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. All through those incidences, her two best friends, Harry and Ron, remained constant sources of support. She and Ron began to develop an odd romantic tension that neither of them could acknowledge.
Actress Emma Watson was only 9 when she joined the cast of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. It was her debut acting role and a big score for the pre-teen Hollywood newcomer. Little did she know that the Harry Potter franchise would envelope her entire adolescence. Her comparatively frizzy hair has since smoothed out and shined up in front of international audiences.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince marks a vital point in Hermione’s life. Even as she continues to hold the title prefect in her house of Gryffindor and surpass expectations at Hogwarts, Ron persists in annoying her and deals the ultimate blow to her ego when he kisses her roommate, Lavender Brown, in public. Meanwhile, Hermione is invited along with Harry into Professor Slughorn’s exclusive Slug Club for students who show potential with potions. But all the accolades and high magic-exam scores she has received won’t be enough to replace her wounded friendship with Ron.
As Hermione enters her sixth year of school in The Half-Blood Prince, Watson, who is now 18, will be starting her own university studies at a yet-to-be-revealed school. She has mentioned she would like to study English literature and art. Once there, she may need to exercise some Hermione-like ingenuity to schedule her classes around commitments for the two installments of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that are currently in production.